Recruiting trends shaped by the pandemic

 

Recruiting trends shaped by the pandemic

The Pandemic has increased the challenges for recruitment and selection. Employee recruitment and selection happens when there is a shortage of human capital (Mwita, 2020). Recruitment in private organizations were largely affected than public organizations which continued to operate during COVID-19 as they were considered essential businesses. Many organizations were forced to curb their recruitment plans. Therefore, they had to retain existing staff and design layoff strategies to minimize cost (Elsafty et. al, 2020). 

The concept of virtual workspaces has led to changes in organizational culture (Kingma, 2019). It has become much more difficult to hire talented employees (Ahmed et.al, 2020). In traditional business environment, recruiters meet with prospective employees for assessment. However due to the potential spread of COVID-19, HR professionals are currently focusing on online interviews. Job opportunities are published electronically and candidates are able to send their applications electronically. Conducting online assessment for employees seemed impossible for the organization until the outbreak of COVID-19. The pandemic forced the companies to adopt electronic Human Resource Management (e-HRM) to enable recruitment and selection, employee training, performance management and so on. (Bhardwaj et. al, 2020).

It has been foreseen that the companies will continue with virtual hiring post COVID as well. The companies will function with a hybrid model of onsite and remote employees (Wang et. al, 2020). Virtual and automated interviews are expected to be replace face-to-face interactions accelerating the processes whilst ensuring safety. Virtual recruitment platforms are helping organizations to streamline recruitment and selection processes, increase transparency, embrace diversity in hiring and secure right talent despite geographical barrier (Kropp, 2021). 

Banking industry is considered as one of the essential services industry. The banks had to adopt a hybrid model to their recruitment where frontline employees had to come to work and others work from home and drop in at work as and when required on shift basis. Technology has become the enabler to connect individuals emotionally and socially even we are in physical isolation. This crisis has become the catalyst for change in how we approach jobs and careers.

Internal mobility has increased by 20 percent since COVID (Bhardwaj et. al, 2020). This is due to decrease in recruiting budget while increasing learning and development budget. Employees are redesigning their workforce by reskilling their employees and development contingent talent rather than hiring externally (Haas et. al, 2020). This shift to internal recruitment has increased interaction, decrease in costs and minimize recruitment timeline. Also the companies are undergoing significant changes in their organizational structure from being static to project-based or cross functional teams necessitating collaboration. This has resulted in Human Resources and Learning & Development to partner to understand the existing skill sets, identify skill gaps and implement strong internal mobility initiatives (Haas et. al, 2020).

Recruiters are expected to play a bigger role. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE & I) is becoming critical areas of focus in recruitment due to increased connectivity and lack of geographical barriers (Usmani, 2019). Talent professionals are not only responsible for interviewing diverse candidate pool but for promoting diverse pipeline of candidates and holding hiring managers accountable for moving diverse candidates through the hiring process. (Becky et. al, 2020).  This is because, companies can now record the interviews, analyze meetings to gather hard facts on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE & I).

Due to remote working, the flexibility has shifted from location to time. Remote working has surpassed the barriers of companies working to an agreed set of hours to productivity based model. Employees will be measured by their productivity. The question will be when will the employees work rather than where they will work. Technology provides employees with the opportunity to work from anywhere, anytime (Gill, 2021).

Alternative recruitment strategies have been developed during the pandemic to minimize unnecessary long term costs (Kropp, 2021). Whilst some companies are maximizing the benefits from internal recruitment, some are renting talent by paying premium for employees with the right skill until their need manifests. This does not increase the contractual obligations of the firm and is much more effective than external recruitment (Haas et. al, 2020).

 

References

Ahmed, T., Muhammad Shahid, K., Duangkamol, T., Siraphatthada, Y. & Phumdara, T. (2020).  Impact of employees’ engagement and knowledge sharing on organizational performance: Study of HR challenges in COVID-19 pandemic. Human Systems Management. Vol. 39 (4). 

Bhardwaj, A., K. & Rajput, N., S. (2020). Advancement in E-Recruitment: Itutor Group. Journal Global Values, Vol.XI. Retrieved on March 24, 2021 from https://anubooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/JGV-SPECIAL-ISSUE-COMPLETE-K-Mittal.pdf#page=12

Elsafty, A., S. & Ragheb, M. (2020). The Role of Human Resource Management Towards Employees Retention During Covid-19 Pandemic in Medical Supplies Sector – Egypt. Business and Management Studies. Vol. 6 (2).

Frankiewicz, F. & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2020). The Post-Pandemic Rules of Talent Management. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved on March 29, 2021 from https://hbr.org/2020/10/the-post-pandemic-rules-of-talent-management

Gill, N., S. (2021). Recruitment and Selection Procedure in Human Resource Management. International Journal of Computer Science and Mobile Computing. Retrieved on March 24, 2021 from DOI: 10.47760/ijcsmc.2021.v10i02.006

Haas, M., R., C., He, S., Sternberg, K., Jordon, J., Deiorio, N., M., Chan, T., M. & Yarris, L., M. (2020). Reimagining Residency Selection: Part 1—A Practical Guide to Recruitment in the Post-COVID-19 Era. Vol. 12 (5).

Kingma, S. (2019). New ways of working (NWW): work space and cultural change in virtualizing organizations. Culture and Organization 25:5, 383-406, DOI: 10.1080/14759551.2018.1427747

Kropp, B. (2021). 9 Trends That Will Shape Work in 2021 and Beyond. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved on March 25, 2021 from https://hbr.org/2021/01/9-trends-that-will-shape-work-in-2021-and-beyond 

Mwita, K., M. (2020). Effects of corona virus pandemic (covid-19) on selected human resource management practices in Tanzania. East African Journal of Social and Applied Sciences. Vol. 2 (2).

Usmani, S. (2019). Recruitment and Selection Process at Workplace: A Qualitative, Quantitative and Experimental Perspective of Physical Attractiveness and Social Desirability. Review of Integrative Business and Economics Research, Vol. 9 (2).

Wang, B., Liu, Y., Qian, L. & Parker, S., K. (2020). Achieving Effective Remote Working During the COVID‐19 Pandemic: A Work Design Perspective. Applied Psychology. Retrieved on March 26, 2021 from doi: 10.1111/apps.12290